Where the deuce have you been prowling, that so late you come a howling,

Keeping up this nasty growling, growling at my chamber-door?

I was hardly sure I heard you.” Here I open flung the door,—

Darkness there, and nothing more!

Back into my chamber turning, where my lamp was dimly burning,

Soon again I heard a growling, something louder than before.

“Surely,” said I, “surely, that is something stirring at my lattice,

Let me see if ghost or cat ’tis, and this mystery explore.

Pooh! I have it, what a duffer, what a booby, to be sure!

’Tis the wind, and nothing more!”